I Know There's A Hanna-Barbera Land Around Here Somewhere! **New and Completed 7/11**

[Bridora]

Pictures, continued:

All the colors on the Boardwalk at night were gorgeous!

I’ve even got some more pictures, but I think I took them another night, so I’ll save those for later.

I don’t want y’all to get burned out, lol!


Friday would be our first park day! We were looking forward to Epcot and lunch at Le Cellier…

 

[tinkgurl]

Artwork hanging over the couch which pulled out for a bed for the kids. (The couch, not the picture, lol!)

Thanks for the correction.

 

[wdwgirl03]

Sorry Sarah! It was an awesome view...we loved going out on the balcony. It seems like there was always something going on below.

I guess I can forgive you because we just booked a studio at the Boardwalk Villas for our Easter trip!!! AHHHH I can't wait! So now I say, bring on the pictures!

 

[IheartDDuck]

You really did score on a view. I love the Boardwalk, especially at night.

Ohana looks really good for dinner. I admit, I haven't been there for dinner in quite a number of years.

You are so right about the size of Boardwalk though. Man, it seems to take forever to get anywhere. I admit I got lost once or twice during my trip in February.

 

[Bridora]

Thanks for the correction.

It sounded a little funny when I read it back! Hey, I don't want to be responsible for any innocent first time guests trying to put out that picture to make a bed!

I guess I can forgive you because we just booked a studio at the Boardwalk Villas for our Easter trip!!! AHHHH I can't wait! So now I say, bring on the pictures!

Yay! Don't worry....I've got lots more!

You really did score on a view. I love the Boardwalk, especially at night.

Ohana looks really good for dinner. I admit, I haven't been there for dinner in quite a number of years.

You are so right about the size of Boardwalk though. Man, it seems to take forever to get anywhere. I admit I got lost once or twice during my trip in February.

It's really pretty at night! But so easy to get lost around there!

Oh my goodness.....your view was fantastic! It seems like every way you turned, there was something gorgeous to look at.

I am thinking about buying a waterproof camera and your's seems to take great pictures. What model is it?

It's an Olympus Stylus Tough 3000.

 

[RachelNinja]

Those boardwalk pictures are great! I think it'd be so fun to rent surrey bike or a regular bike for that boardwalk!

 

[Bridora]

Holy cow, you guys! I can't believe it's been so long since I've even logged in here. I guess my time has been occupied with other things. I really want to finish this Trip Report, though! I will try to get something up in the next few days, but most likely this weekend. I'd hate to not finish the story, lol!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Holy cow, you guys! I can't believe it's been so long since I've even logged in here. I guess my time has been occupied with other things. I really want to finish this Trip Report, though! I will try to get something up in the next few days, but most likely this weekend. I'd hate to not finish the story, lol!

I totally understand having "life" take over and not being able to get on the Dis as much as we would like. It's good to "see" you on the boards again and I look forward to reading more.

 

[Bridora]

Those boardwalk pictures are great! I think it'd be so fun to rent surrey bike or a regular bike for that boardwalk!

Thanks! It was very much fun! You'll have to try it sometime.

I totally understand having "life" take over and not being able to get on the Dis as much as we would like. It's good to "see" you on the boards again and I look forward to reading more.

I can't believe it's been so long, though! I'm usually behind, but I think this is a record!

 

[Bridora]

On our last episode…

We had checked into Boardwalk Villas with a spectacular view of the Boardwalk. After a delicious dinner at ‘Ohana, we were back in our room anticipating our first day in the parks.



Friday, May 27, 2011

That morning, we decided to take one of the boats over to Epcot.


We had two things scheduled for today: lunch at Le Cellier at 11:55 and a surprise Behind the Seeds tour at 3:00. Other than that, we had the whole day to explore Epcot as we wished!

And how could you not have a magical day after being greeted by that sign?


Awaiting our ride, I snapped these next few pictures. I really love the dock area!

And we’re on the boat!

A wedding!

The boat will take you to the “back entrance” of Epcot. If you’re not sure where I’m talking about, there is a gate on the World Showcase side of Epcot, just before you cross the bridge going from the UK to France, on your right. Anyone coming from Yacht or Beach Club, Boardwalk, or Swan & Dolphin areas can walk or take one of the boats and come to this gate. I’m pretty sure you can catch a boat from Hollywood Studios to Epcot as well. We loved using this entrance because it feels so “VIP” to come up to the nearly always empty turnstiles!

Our first plans for the morning were to head to the Land for some Soarin’ Fastpasses!


Strolling through the UK and Canada…

We’ll be back soon for you, Le Cellier!


And on toward Future World…

It was a gorgeous day!

I forced the children to stop for a photo!



We were on the lookout for the Tronorail!

Nope, not it!

…continued below…

 

[Bridora]

…continued…

Getting those Fastpasses!




With our rides secured for later, we headed over to Innoventions to see what we could find inside…

The first thing we found was Runtime! It is so much fun. You must all try this one! You stand in front of a green screen (above) and follow the instructions that come up on the display in front of you. It tells you to run (in place), jump, and dance. It captures your movements and then puts you into a video game that you then get to play! It was really a lot of fun. The kids loved it and we were all cracking up when they played it. You can also email it to yourself, which we did.


Here is Luke playing their game. They had to take turns on the levels because you only get to play it once.

I tried for a close-up screen shot of the game:

Next, we played the Great Piggy Bank Adventure, another first for us and also another fun game!

The games teaches your kids about saving money. At the beginning of the game, you choose a goal. During the game, you will be trying to make enough money to reach that goal. The goals were something like: water slide bedroom makeover, vacation, and retirement. Allison & I choose the bedroom makeover, as did Luke & Davis.

I didn’t take any more pictures while we played, but basically, you took your pig from station to station, earning money, making it grow, and trying to protect it from inflation. Each station had some kind of “port” for you pig to go in while you played a game on a screen. Your pig came back out when your game was up and you all moved on to the next station. At the end, you weigh your pig to see if you’ve earned enough to make your goal. Sadly, Allison & I did not get the “room makeover”, due to some user error on making our money at the very first station. However, Luke & Davis did get make their goal; congrats, guys!


We decided then to head back toward Canada, with a pit-stop at Club Cool. Every one in our party knows to stay away from Beverly, and we pretty much have our favorites, so it was just a quick refreshing pit stop for us!

After that, we were on our way to the World Showcase! We’ve never really explored the Canada pavilion, so we were looking forward to taking some time to do that while waiting for our table!

 

[RachelNinja]

Ooo, I should spend more time exploring Epcot next trip! With APs (that's our plan!), we can go every single day and that means we can devote time to all the things we never get to play!

 

[Bridora]

Ooo, I should spend more time exploring Epcot next trip! With APs (that's our plan!), we can go every single day and that means we can devote time to all the things we never get to play!

We always say we want to spend more time exploring countries, but we never seem to have enough time to see them all.

APs?! How exciting!

 

[Bridora]

May 27, 2011
After hitting Club Cool, it was time for us to hop over to Canada and check in for our very first meal at Le Cellier.

Still not the Tronorail!

Heading to lunch in Canada.

Lightning McQueen and Mater were still hanging out, even though Flower & Garden Festival was over.

It was hard to get a picture of them without anyone else in it!

I thought these were very pretty.

We checked in and made our way deeper into Canada.

We had briefly explored Canada in the past. I do mean briefly. I think our previous experience with Canada was the kids sticking their faces in the Totem Pole holes for a picture, and running up the stairs to “see what was up there”. We had time to better explore and appreciate all the detail that is put into the surroundings. We also took a stroll through the Northwest Mercantile store and the Trading Post. I found a cute t-shirt, but did not purchase it.

I just noticed that my finger is in the upper left corner of this shot, lol!

I see the O Canada theater back there to the left of the picture, but we did not go in.

Just hanging out on the streets of Canada. (Pavilion)

There weren’t that many people there with us at the time. I think most everyone else was waiting inside Le Cellier for their names to be called.

I wish I could get my flower baskets to stay this pretty at home!

We wandered back to the restaurant and went inside to await the calling of our name. It wasn’t long before we were seated. I don’t remember which province we were in, but the atmosphere inside was nice. I tried to capture the feel of the place with some pictures.

It appears we were in the Northwest Territories!


Continued in Next Post

 

[Bridora]

…Continued

The bread!

So good, it was worth two pictures!



So good, we ate it all! Our waiter brought us out some more, but we didn’t eat as much of it. We had to save room for our food!



The kids were against my taking pictures of their food, so I only took a picture of my meal and Davis’s.

My Mushroom Filet Mignon - pretty sure! It was very good! From allears.net:

Le Cellier Mushroom Filet Mignon - with wild mushroom risotto, white truffle and herb butter sauce

I can’t remember what Davis had. I can’t quite match it up to anything on the menu, but I do know that he liked it! Davis, if you remember, let us know!



I think he may have ordered some kind of chef’s recommended meal. I’m kind of fuzzy on that and don’t see any mention of it on allears.net, but I think I remember he had a list of appetizer, entrée, and dessert he could choose from. I think he had the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup also.

And this would have been his dessert. Looks like crème brulee to me? I'm so glad that he shared!

The bread was so good that I wanted to take it with us. I was debating whether or not to just stick it in my Vera Bradley hipster or not. I ended up asking our waiter (don’t remember his name, but he was great!) if he could bring me something to wrap it in or a box for it. He said that he would just bring us out some fresh bread instead. I tried arguing with him that the bread we had was perfectly fine, but he insisted on us having warm, fresh bread to take with us. This was near the end of the meal, so he went ahead and took the bread from the table with him.


Sadly, he never returned with our warm, fresh bread. It was very sad at the time, but looking back, I’m sure carrying around all that bread wouldn’t have been all that great and by the time we got around to eating it, it might have been too stale to be any good; or maybe it would have been very yummy and not a burden to carry at all, after all, bread doesn’t weight that much!


The Canada Pavilion is so pretty! On our way out, I took even more pictures:

Isn’t this cottage adorable?

I think I could live there!

Uh oh! Someone was probably upset to lose that straw!

You could all come visit me here when you’re in the area…

I just needed one more shot!

Until next time, Canada!

The World awaits! (And probably needs to be saved!)

 

[Bridora]

May 27, 2011

After eating lunch at Le Cellier, we went on a mission: a mission to save Mexico!


We had a Kim Possible time coming up, so we walked over to check in.

Our assignment was in Mexico. This was one of the few countries we hadn’t saved yet.

I really love the atmosphere inside this building. It’s so neat how you can be inside, but feel like you’re outside!

Even though I’m not that great at capturing that feeling in clear pictures!

One of the tasks in the mission was to stand in front of a “wall“.

As we watched, a little scene appeared.

Very cool!

Back outside, the kids were getting more instructions and I was taking more pictures.

After we succeeded in saving Mexico, we went to Norway, where they were also having problems.

Watch closely, this is part of the Mission…

A signal!

I really don’t remember taking this guy’s picture.

Another part of the Mission…

When we were here, this was quite the busy area. I think we had to wait on two other parties to finish up here before we could move in to continue on our secret mission!


By the time we had saved those two countries, it was time for us to return to The Land to take our Behind the Seeds Tour or to ride Soarin’, I can’t remember which one we did first!


And you’ll never guess what we saw on the way!






The Tonorail - finally!

Hooray!

 

[mickeystoontown]

Isn't the Canada pavilion beautiful? I am always amazed at how pretty and fresh all the flowers look. By the end of May, mine at home are all droopy and looking sad because of the heat.

Too bad the waiter never brought your fresh bread out to you. I bet it would have been a good snack later that day.

 

[Bridora]

Isn't the Canada pavilion beautiful? I am always amazed at how pretty and fresh all the flowers look. By the end of May, mine at home are all droopy and looking sad because of the heat.

Too bad the waiter never brought your fresh bread out to you. I bet it would have been a good snack later that day.

It is so beautiful! My flowers do the same. I just tell myself that Disney has way more time to devote to keeping the flowers beautiful than I do!

Yes, that silly waiter! That just means I'll have to go back and get some more... If only that was bread instead of popcorn!

 

[Bridora]

May 27, 2011

Probably totally out of order, but for some reason it was with these pictures, so…somewhere along the way we saw a Duffy Meet & Greet setup:

We had a 3:00 Behind the Seeds Tour surprise scheduled for the kids. They weren’t quite as excited as we’d hoped they would be; but Davis & I were!

We checked in at 2:45 and were each given a name tag that had been nicely decorated with some marker drawings. We were told we could go around the corner and sit down to wait until tour time. You check in for the Behind the Seeds Tour in the Land pavilion to the left of Soarin’. We waited in the hallway to the left of that, the one in front of the restrooms. Pretty soon a few more people joined us. We noticed none of their tags were decorated and thought that maybe it was because we had scheduled our tour in advance and they may have just walked up to schedule theirs. There was a family of 3, a couple of twenty something guys, and an older man and woman couple. I think that was it for our tour. Our tour guide soon met us and led us backstage somewhere past the Soarin’ queue.


We gathered in a small room with lots of terrariums.

Inside those terrariums were bugs.

Our guide showed us a short video about the benefits of these bugs and talked to us about them some. She then handed out a few tubes that had lady bugs in them. We were going to do a lady bug release later in the tour. Allison & Luke took turns carrying one tube.


I’m sure these pictures will be completely out of order, but I’m still going to show them to you. My camera battery died shortly after we began the tour, but Luke was nice enough to let me use his.

After leaving the terrarium room, we walked outside briefly, then into another building.

I would love to see a sign like that every day!

Living with the Land from the other side!

I don’t remember the name of this plant, but if you touched the leaves it would curl up on itself as a defense mechanism. I think our guide also had us make a noise when we did it, but I can’t remember how it sounded!

Maybe I will ask Luke.

Hello people on the ride!

Growing salad

Here we are learning about the Hydroponic Gro Tanks

I wish I could remember what this said. I know I took a picture of it for some reason. Hey, mickeystoontown, do you remember this?


…Continued in next post…

 

[Bridora]

…Behind the Seeds, continued…

Growing Mickey-shaped cucumbers

Tomatoes

It says “The most tomatoes harvested from a single plant in one year weighed 522,464 kg (1151.84 lbs). The tomato plant is at the Epcot Science project at Walt Disney World Company in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA. The harvest started on 24 May 2005 and ended on 20 April 2006”

Wow!

Taking a break beside this cooling wall! Allison & Davis really really enjoyed it! As I remember it was pretty warm that day.

Sweet Potato

It was time to set the lady bugs free!

Wow, those are big! I took this picture because Allison & my mom had just planted some much smaller versions of these guys back home.

There really is a lot to see on this tour!

I’m sure you can tell by the color of this picture where we are now…

Coming up next, a few Hidden Mickeys:

Ok, not a Mickey, but a cute little house for that guy!

…Continued in next post…